


The Present

by sunaddicted



Series: Tumblr Prompts 2018 [27]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Character Study, Delirium, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Relationship Study, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 13:26:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15730299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunaddicted/pseuds/sunaddicted
Summary: Oswald wanted to say he understood.He didn't.





	The Present

**Author's Note:**

> For the amazingly talented @samhound who asked for nygmobblepot + "I don't want to be alone" - this came out angstier than I had planned.

_The Present_

Despite being alone, Oswald had never felt lonely; he’d felt angry, disheartened, flamed up with the need for revenge cursing through his veins like a drug eating away at his blood - lost, as he had held the corpses of the people he loved the most and broken, as he watched the bonds he had built crumble away as if they hadn’t been forged in blood and passion.

He supposed that to feel lonely, one would have to hate their own presence for company; it had never been a problem for Oswald, who had grown up without siblings and shunned by his peers - he was too poor, too ugly, too gay.

Too different.

But then, so had Edward and if there was something that Oswald had learnt about the other man, it was that he loathed his own presence: he couldn’t stand it - couldn’t stand the silence that was populated by voices that wouldn’t stop tormenting him no matter how much he raged against them - and even the presence of someone he hated was preferred to loneliness.

Oswald wanted to say that he understood.

He didn’t.

Ultimately, his empathy was a weapon: it would turn up only when his brain was flooded by the distinctive surge of adrenaline an entertaining challenge brought along - apparently, Edward Nygma didn’t register as such in his synapses.

He had bested him more than once, afterall: the Penguin had other enemies rather than the Riddler; even when the man turned from lover into a betrayer - it was an endless cycle, they swirled around one another in an unbroken spiral - the man never registered as too much of a threat.

Maybe because Edward didn’t want power.

Certainly not because he was convinced the other man wouldn’t kill him: Oswald was well-aware of the fact that Edward could and would choke him to death with his own hands, bring a gun to the temple of his head, bury a knife to the mouth of his stomach and tug up and up and up…

Fathom pain flared up and as he stood up, he pressed his palm down on the point where he knew there was an old scar - not as old as the circular one under his ribs, so pale that had almost faded back into his skin - that marked the time Edward had almost eviscerated him.

The gory sight of his quivering organs framing his glistening white lower ribs like a particularly humid still nature of ripe fruits and bones had been enough for Edward to stop himself, eyes wide open in shock behind his glasses flecked with blood just before they had filled with tears and Edward had thrown himself over him.

Delirious, Oswald had thought that it was one way to apply pressure to a bleeding wound - though, he hadn’t been too sure that the method could be employed if there was a bullet lodged in the flesh: the impact of another body falling down would only push a bullet deeper in the body and that was something better avoided, right?

Right.

Edward had cried in his neck

(I’m sorry I’m sorryI'msorryImsorryimsorryimsorryimsorry)

while Oswald had just tried to breathe - to gather the strenght to remind the other man to call one of the doctors that a man like the Penguin always kept on standby.

“Os”

Oswald let his fingers fall away, smoothing his lapel on their way down to his side “Yes?“

"I don’t want to be alone”

“I know, love” he bent down and kissed Edward’s cheek, wincing as his hip twinged in discomfort - echoed by a chorus of joints being gnawed at by humidity and age “I just want a drink. Do you want one?”

“No” Edward leaned into the display of affection, eyes closed to soak it up until the last drop - only that the well of Oswald’s love never seemed to dry up: no matter what he did, the other man eventually always let him back in his heart.

He couldn’t help wondering if Oswald did it just out of habit, because he had gotten used to have him around - the thought of their burning passion languishing in ashes made Edward shiver in fear and disgust: they were so much more than broken routines taped up together for convenience.

“Shh, it’s alright”

Edward hadn’t noticed he had been crying until a calloused thumb had wiped the moisture away “I’m so sorry” he said the words so often that they felt empty “Oswald, I love you so much. I’m so sorry”

“You didn’t do anything, Ed” Oswald sighed "It’s just the fever” his body fighting against the infection that had settled in after Edward had stubbornly taken care of a serious wound on his own, crawling out of his hideout only when the flesh had turned black and puissance had dripped out of him at every breath.

“All the times.. ”

“They’re in the past”

“But..”

Oswald kissed Edward’s dry chapped lips “They’re in the past” he repeated “And we live in the present”


End file.
